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Snapchat has added several new features to its app, giving users new ways to create, edit, send, and watch Snaps, The Verge reports, including:
- Magic eraser: This new tool lets users remove real-world objects from their Snaps and replace them with their surroundings. The feature immediately brings Photoshop's capabilities to mind — this could give an inkling to the where Snap eventually hopes to go.
- Emoji pen: Snapchat users are familiar with drawing in the app using the drawing pen. Now, they can create these drawings with a new emoji pen, which uses any one emoji as 'ink'. Previously, users had to add each emoji individually via the sticker tool and the pen tool merely let users draw in color.
- No limit: There’s now an "infinity" option on the Snapchat timer setting so that when a recipient opens the Snap it stays open for as long they’d like. Once the recipient closes the Snap, it will self-destruct as usual. Stories will also stay up for the normal 24 hours. This feature could be useful for brands that wish to feature a product or service more permanently in a Snap.
- Loop tool: This lets users send Snaps that play and repeat endlessly until the recipient taps out. This tool expands the creative functionalities on Snapchat, which can drive up engagement among consumers, and provide brands with new content creation opportunities, much like the ‘no limit’ time setting.
Snap said in its S-1 that its growth will depend on its ability to innovate faster than its rivals. It’s clear that one area Snap is focused on is developing Snapchat’s creative tools — to give its users more freedom to express themselves than in its rivals’ apps. And the further Snapchat stays ahead of its rivals, the better it looks. Conversely, its rivals look like unimaginative runner-ups every time they copy Snap.
Rapidly launching new and original products, therefore, has big brand benefits for Snapchat. This will be a key asset moving forward, particularly for retention and growing average revenue per user. TechCrunch has already found that Snapchat users are staying loyal to the app. These loyal users are unlikely to be tempted to switch or defect to other platforms that, in their eyes, look like hackneyed Snapchat copycats.
Mobile-app makers and content creators are vying for consumer attention in a crowded and noisy market.
Even if an app can stand out enough to prompt a consumer to download it from among a list of millions, it then faces the challenge of enticing him or her to use it enough times to recuperate development, maintenance, and marketing costs. To make matters worse, those marketing costs have hit record-high levels over the past year as discoverability has become more challenging.
And while consumers are spending more time in apps, most of that time is spent in a few favorites. Consumers spend almost three-quarters of their total smartphone app time in just their three favorite apps, according to comScore.
But it's not all doom and gloom: There are numerous tools at a publisher's disposal to engage and re-engage consumers, and there are new products and solutions coming to market that can help alleviate some of the issues around this app engagement crisis.
Jessica Smith, research analyst for BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has compiled a detailed report on app engagement that explores the current state of the app market, the issues around engaging consumers, and the tools at a publisher's disposal. It also identifies best practices for the implementation of some app engagement tools, and presents the pitfalls that some publishers fall into in this pursuit.
Here are some key takeaways from the report:
- The app market today is challenging and volatile. It's difficult to stand out, and most apps have to be offered for free in order to entice consumers who have too much supply to choose from. This puts greater emphasis on engaging consumers after they've downloaded an app in order to recoup costs.
- Consumers are more difficult to engage today, as most have dozens of apps installed on their devices yet spend most of their time in just a select handful of favorites.
- There are numerous solutions at hand for mobile app publishers and content creators seeking to engage consumers. Push notifications, in-app messaging, and app message centers with badges are three tools publishers can use to engage consumers.
- While many publishers mistakenly rely solely on push notifications for app engagements, this is a poor practice because many consumers don't allow push notifications and those that do can easily be overwhelmed when they receive too many.
- The best solution often includes leveraging two or three of these tools to engage consumers with the right message at the right time. The technology in this market has grown increasingly sophisticated, and publishers that don't diversify their approach run the risk of annoying their consumers to the point of abandonment.
- There are emerging engagement technologies that will change the current app engagement norms and present new ways for app publishers to communicate with users. The mobile ecosystem is changing quickly as technology improves and consumers become more comfortable conducting more activities on mobile devices.
In full, the report:
- Identifies the major challenges in today's app market and explains why employing good app engagement practices is more important than ever before.
- Presents the major app engagement tools currently available.
- Examines the pros and cons of each app engagement tool while outlining some pitfalls that publishers encounter in implementing them.
- Prescribes best practices for adopting various app engagement tools or strategies.
- Assesses how the market will likely change over the next five years as emerging technologies change both consumer behavior with mobile devices and introduce new tools with which to engage consumers.
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